


you're at the party

by sweetlittlebat (orphan_account)



Category: Don't Starve (Video Game)
Genre: Gender-neutral Reader, Multi, No Plot/Plotless, Other, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:01:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26855614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/sweetlittlebat
Summary: for a friend
Relationships: Wilson (Don't Starve) & Reader, Wilson (Don't Starve)/Reader
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	1. prologue

And when you awake, its flat on your back, staring up at an unfamiliar sky, feeling the chilly numbness, the remnants of darkness leeching itself from your limbs, and you hear a gentle late summer breeze twist gently through tall grass. The sun is in your eyes, and there’s a shadowy figure looming above you, breaking into the clear blue.

“Say pal,” it hisses above you, reedy voice sounding oddly musical amongst the silence “you don’t look so good. You better find something to eat before night comes!” And it laughs, and it walks off. 

So you breathe deep, struggling to keep it in your lungs as you sit up, shaking the stiffness from your hands.You curl your fingers into the lush ground beneath you, and you don’t understand. You tilt your head back up, eyes wide, finally seeing, letting your lips fall open, and you wail. A desperate thing, raspy yet carrying that same musical inflection, and you don’t understand. You stand, whirling around, seeing a dense forest full of trees, sunbeams faintly speckling the ground. There are no paths, you don't know why you thought there would be. Stumbling in, useing the trees to support yourself, you ache. 

With labored breathing, you stumble into the forest. Distantly, a gnawing sort of hunger begins to set in. The earth is soft, springy under your steps, and the air has a sweetness that coats your tongue like a film. You near a clearing, the distant hum of a beehive coaxing you back through the fog that has settled around your mind. You fall on your ass a few steps out from the forest, having to use your arms to scoot yourself the few feet to a flower patch. You startle a butterfly. And it flits in a circle around you, before gliding off to sweeter flowers.

Sighing, you understand. Picking some flowers, the numbness has finally departed from your fingers, and you begin to weave a flower crown with whatever you can get your hands on. It’s sloppy, and you’re sure a lot of it is just tall grass, but it fills you with a warmth. You rub your neck as you look up, seeing a curious rabbit munching on a bush, content in the midday sun. Lifting yourself onto your hands and knees, you crawl over, scaring the rabbit, a jackalope of sorts, which darts away with a grating screech.

Deciding, against quite a bit of rational thought, to listen to the same man that trapped you, you grab a handful, shoving them into your mouth. They’re sweet, sickly so, and taste almost like jam. You hum a single note softly, satisfied, and look about the clearing. To stay here wouldn’t be the absolute worst, you think, if getting home isn’t an option.

You sigh again, before there is a shift in the air, a chill setting in, turning sour on your tongue. You don't understand, that fear creeping back in, and you sit up, looking around, the sky becoming a blazing red as the sun begins to set. There is a brittle bush, closer to the treeline and full of sticks, and you shuffle over, ripping it from the ground. They’re dry, long dead, and you hope it’s enough.

Then, of course, the sky begins to dim, and you set about your task. You manage to stir up some embers, tossing some dry grass on top. It is almost too dark to see, and you shiver. Feeling watched. The familiar embrace of fear grips you tight once again as your measly fire begins to fade. There is a hiss as it extinguishes, and you are plunged into complete darkness. The moon is gone. 

Something tears at your arm. You scream, hot agony blooming from the bite, the warm blood splashing onto your side. Of course, you don’t want to die, no, not like this, and swing wildly into the night pushing and grabbing at things that are not there. But nobody really wants to die, but they always do, and a sightless thing rips at you, toothless yet sharp, tearing your very essence from your skin, shredding you to pieces, and everything sinks darker, horribly darker, and this must be the end-

But you wake up. And it’s seconds before the air turns sour, and you have a handful of berries.You almost drop them, using your free hand to check for any injury. The blinding agony begins to fade, and you stare blankly down at the berries, feeling somehow like you are being laughed at.

You eat, and you eat almost as hungrily as you did the first time around.

This time, you get through the night. Thankfully. What little instinctive behaviors you have had vastly outshined the fear of whatever could be next, at whatever you'd become. At whatever you've been molded into. You shiver, that sour taste back on your tongue. The berries on your bush run low, with your new habit of nervously rustling through the branches again and again.

You collect rocks today, using them to cut down the thinner trees for logs. You aren’t particularly angling for a repeat of the first night, yet the memory of being ripped to shreds already fades. Your firepit, while a bit emaciated, works. Leering at the rabbit hole, you know that berries won’t always be enough. They won’t last forever, they won’t always be in season- that is, if seasons are still something you have here. 

Small is always a terrible way to feel, but you curl up in front of your measly fire, stomach growling, and hot shameful tears begin to prick up. You muffle your wails. You wonder if anyone misses you back home, if anyone even noticed. Your skin prickles under the feeling of being watched, and the air is sharp, almost painful in your lungs. You aren’t used to living like this. 

How long you can last, you wonder. You’re sure it’s not long.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was harder than i thought it was going to be.


	2. meeting

You, as is occasionally the case, were wrong.

Discovering the science machine is on a chance so slim you could hardly believe it. Although there is the distinct feeling you stumbled into it for a reason, you couldn’t complain. Putting spare items into a chest, you soon come to learn, is one of the most delightful experiences one could have, and the mechanical noises, gears whirring about, is a reprieve from the ever present sounds of nature.

Your firepit is strong now, and you have a crockpot. Sitting by a roaring fire while enjoying a fistful of jam is a lot more enjoyable than you previously thought. And you still die, of course, but it has begun to settle out. Steady, as your campsite gets more lived in. Steady, just as the seasons change. Which they do here, you had learned. The cold from your first winter was one that you were never able to shake off, but, just as with the sour air and the shade shifting around you at night, you’ve… gotten used to it. You think you could get used to about anything, here. 

You don’t know how long it’s been. You haven’t aged, you rarely scar, and as the days stretched into months, years, decades, centuries, your time outside begins to grow fuzzy. You can’t remember them, the faces you once saw every day, even the words to your favorite songs. But, you suppose, it doesn’t matter. Even if you managed to wiggle your way out of here, you’re not sure what you’d find. You aren’t sure who you’d be. 

You try not to think about it too much, though. Thinking has gotten monotonous.

You are snapped back into the present when you hear a bizarre noise from the forest, a flash of light, the scent of smoke, ozone, shadows. That's never happened before. You don’t understand, really. Nothing has never happened before in a while.

Peering into the foliage, you hide tactically behind a tree that surely doesn’t cover you all the way. There's a bit of smoke still hanging in the air, and, standing in the middle of a patch of charred earth, is a man. 

A man, standing a bit shorter than yourself, lean, but with a wiry sort of muscle visible through his faded shirt. He has the strangest hairstyle, with two pseudo-horns giving him an unsettling silhouette. He’s gaunt, tired. Like you.

He looks at you like he just struck gold, and blinks, slowly, as if he is checking to see if you’ll stay after he opens his eyes. 

He starts to walk over, and it quickens into a jog, and then a sprint, and you realize belatedly that he isn’t slowing down at all. He launches himself at you, an oddly calculated leap, and the wind gets knocked out of you as you go down. 

A familiar fear burns through you as you try to push him away. You don’t want to die again. But he pulls himself closer, burying his face into your chest, tilting his ear over your heartbeat, pressing close, moving his face up to the crook of your neck, and you tense. You haven’t had contact with another person for what seems like an eternity. What probably was an eternity.

He makes a soft noise, raspy and muted, carrying the same musical sound that voices just seem to have here, as if he is remembering how to speak. Remembering how to move his jaw to form words.

“It- it worked. It worked!” He laughs, beginning at a chuckle and working his way up to a howling sort of noise, and he leans up, shifting so that he is sitting on your hips. You’d be embarrassed, if you cared at all about tact. If you even remembered what that was.

His lips are cracked, and his hands are wrapped tightly with bandages, old blood peeking through the yellowed fabric. He looks at you in wonder, running his knuckles- rough, worn- over your face, feeling your hair, checking your pulse.

“Uh,” you say, eloquent as ever, and push yourself up onto your elbows, leaning into the touch, “what?”

He pulls back, hands hovering awkwardly between you. "Science. Of course."

You blink. You’ve had plenty of science machines over your time here, but never had you met someone else. Raising your hands to meet his, you run them on his arms. Human skin is a lot softer than you remember. You let your hands wander up to his shirt,and he introduces himself as you do so, twitching back when you get to his chest. 

Wilson Percival Higgsbury, then. The name is familiar, but you can’t quite remember why.

Dropping your hands, you lean back onto the dirt. “Do you… uh, want to come back to my camp?” Conversation is unfamiliar, words foreign in your throat, but you find yourself waiting eagerly for a response. Even if he doesn’t talk, there is something different captured in Wilson that isn’t matched by the humanoids here. You’re on good terms with the pig village by your camp, but something is lost on the snout. The tusks. He picks himself up brushing off his pants and offers his hand, which you gladly take. You slide the axe you were carrying into a loop you added to your belt a few deaths back, and pointedly ignore the fact that you don’t need to be holding hands anymore. It’s been a while.

Wilson looks around at your camp site, letting your hand go to, and making a beeline over to your science machine. It begins to whir, the a mechanical sound that faded into the background noise of your daily life. He frowns.

"You have one of these too?" He asks, and you nod. "That- but- it's identical. It’s exactly..."

You shrug, "Haven't you felt it too, though? Nothing I think here feels just mine anymore."

His shoulders droop, and he dejectedly pokes around the rest of the camp. You use this time to take it all in. It's been who knows how long since you've seen another person, other than reflections of yourself caught in stillwater, and it's odd to see him move. A jagged sort of elegance. Practiced movements, but with an edge of wonder. Wilson presses his face into your tent, feeling the soft worn fabric on his cheek, and hums softly before looking back over.

"It’s- ah, softer than mine." Wilson huffs. You puff out your chest, tilting your head in a show of pride, and he cracks a smile, a cut on his lip beginning to bleed sluggishly. He hunches down further, letting himself plop down in the opening, pushing his head farther in, eyes falling shut.

Your eyes wander over his small frame, and you walk over to your icebox, pulling out a rabbit and some mushrooms to make some food for your guest. Meatballs seem like a good go to campwarming meal, right? At least, you think he’s a guest, unless he has any more science laying around, Wilson probably won’t be leaving. You frown. You’d probably have to make him his own tent, and you had been saving up any silk for another cookbook. It was very satisfying to watch a page fill in with a new recipe, ink leeching in from the spine. Sometimes, they even had pictures, and your last one had gotten soaked in the last rain. The ink didn’t quite wash off of your fingers since, and even in certain light you could still see the splatters.

But… you know, Wilson seems very polite. Sure of himself, and likely a bit of a self-destructive streak, if he goes around hurling himself into just any handmade portal, yet polite. You might not have to waste any silk, you think, sweeping prepared ingredients into the crockpot, if you play it all right.

“So…” you start, and although your back is turned to him you can hear him shift, “Two of us at this camp, now.” You pause, and Wilson hums, “One of everything. Including a tent.” And your fur roll you’d been using as a blanket, but that’s not as important. You look over your shoulder, and he is deliberately looking off to the side. “And, unfortunately, I’m using what silk I have for a new cookbook. So, until we have… enough,”

He shrugs, mulling it over. “You really wouldn't mind sleeping outside,” he asks, reaching back inside the tent, feeling the fur, “but, that isn’t what you’re offering, is it?”

You turn back around, clearing your throat, and he chuckles. “I wouldn’t mind. Its… this is soft.”

You nod silently, listening to the soft cooking noises of your crockpot. You don’t really know what to say. Eons of loneliness, of only talking to pigs, and you’re at a loss for words.

The day turns to dusk as you pile the meatballs onto a plate, handing it to Wilson after he starts the fire. You sit on opposite sides, tucking into your dinners. It’s the first meal you’ve shared with someone else since you were Outside, and its somehow more filling.

The silence isn’t tense as you set the plates off to the side, but there’s a change as you stand in front of your tent. He pauses next to you, and nods. You go in first, shifting around until you’re decently comfortable, and he follows after, delicately tucking himself under the blanket and securing the flap shut.

The fire still crackles outside, and you listen to his breath even out before drifting off yourself. For the first time since you came here, you dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and there was only one bed... 
> 
> decided to get this one out quick, as this story is tagged as an xreader and with wilson but those are both absent in the prologue. 
> 
> if you ignored my summary and decided to read this anyway, feel free to tell me if i got anything wrong, or anything you'd like to see.


	3. spiders

You wake up. It’s warm, too warm, and you shove the blanket away. The blanket doesn’t budge and much to your dismay only grips you tighter.

“Wh- huh?” You say, voice rough, blearily searching around. Once, a spider with poor eyesight had climbed in for a cuddle after mistaking your tent as its own nest, and although it was polite enough to scuttle off to its correct sleeping arrangements instead of attacking you, you’ve seen some yellow variants wandering about lately, and you’re not too sure they’d have the same manners.

It’s not a spider though, you think, burying your fingers into something soft. The fur is far too long, too soft, to be that of an arachnid. You crack open an eyelid, sight cloudy with sleep, and see a Wilson snoring softly, tucked into your side.

Oh, right.

You let your head fall back onto the tent floor, sleep washing away gradually as you wake. Your bird is warbling in her cage outside, likely hopping about her egg. Gently bunching up the blanket around you, you extract yourself from Wilson’s grip, putting the extra fabric into his arms. He murmurs in his sleep, gripping the blankets tightly. You freeze, hoping to let him get those few extra minutes, and he settles. That’s good, at least. He looked tired yesterday.

Outside, the morning is bright. The air is cool on your face, and the grass is damp. Must’ve rained last night. You’re starving, though, so before you set off to explore you begin to prepare some breakfast, reaching into your birdcage to collect one of the eggs. She chitters indignantly at you, fluttering about your hand. You throw it and some leftovers into the crockpot and stretch, your bones popping each time. You still need reeds to make your cookbook, and you decide to hunt for some today.

As if woken by the smell of breakfast, Wilson pokes his head out of the tent, rubbing his face tiredly. “Morning,” he grumbles, still sounding foreign after so long of living in silence, "whatsit."

You raise an eyebrow but decide not to comment. "Eggs and uh... meat."

He grunts, "Meat?" And you nod. You don't actually remember where it came from, things don't have distinctive tastes here, really. They all sort of blend into a bland, tasteless texture. You dump the contents onto plates, one for yourself and one for Wilson, leaving some in the pot for when you get back. Breakfast is much like dinner, eaten in a comfortable silence. You finish first.

"Have to get reeds. Cookbook." You hum, Wilson blinking in response. "Want to stay here? Or come with?"

He shrugs, and finishes his plate, setting it off to the side. You stand, rustling through your chests for enough to make a torch, just in case. Wilson stands too, though, and you gesture for him to follow. He does, hanging a bit behind you. You follow your map, following the path you yourself created throughout your time here. It’s dewy after the rain, causing what spiders you see to stick close to their nest. Its nice out.

Wilson is muttering to himself behind you, a habit likely picked up in his centuries alone, to fill the quiet. The loneliness had chewed holes into the very fabric of your being, and now that they were full, you don’t know what to do with yourself. It’s almost _too_ much, having a whole new person here. You try not to let it bother you.

The scent of rotting plant matter starts to cloud around you, and the rumbling of something lurking beneath grows louder as you approach the marsh. Wilson, smart as he presents himself, almost walks right over a patch of shifting soil. You grab his collar, yanking him just out of reach of the tentacle as it lurches from the ground, flailing its spikes about wildly. You look at Wilson quizzically, and he’s frowning at the ground, soil still disturbed.

He glances at you, shaking his head softly, and you can’t quite piece together what he means. You drop your hand, and continue forward, subtly checking behind you to make sure Wilson is following close.

He glances at you, shaking his head softly, and you can’t quite piece together what he means. You drop your hand, and continue forward, subtly checking behind you to make sure he's is following close.

He is of course, looking blankly around like some sort of lost dog, you wonder briefly if his Constant didn't have any marshes, and you must have shown it on your face, as he looks at you again, deciding to speak.

"Yes." He says simply, and you shrug.

"Doesn't feel like it, though." You internally wince at your own bluntness and his eyebrows raise in response. You wince outwardly too, for both of your sakes.

You drift off of the path when you come into sigh t of your designated reed patch. You had to kill a concerning number of tentacles to get easy access to all of these, and you're not really keen on having to go through that again, so you stick to the outskirts of the swamp.

You methodically go through the reeds, and you're hoping Wilson doesn't use your distraction as an opportunity to walk off to get gored by any tentacles that've sprouted in your absence.

He doesn't, thankfully. You'd hate for your first friend in eons to die to the marsh. Purple is a terrible color, something you've come to learn over your time here, and you'd hate for it to be the last thing he sees. It happened to you more than once back when you first discovered this marsh, and each time was more unpleasant than the last.

You realize you've been staring at the reeds in your hands for too long when Wilson clears his throat. Your head snaps up, and it probably looks weird when your ears turn pink. You hope can't see them.

"I saw some spiders back there, and you said you needed silk?"

You try to ignore the disappointment that sets in, and nod.

"Depends. You want me to handle 'em? It's almost three tiers. I don't feel like dealing with any of the little yellow ones." You shrug, and sigh. "I do have some spare grass, though. Could weave up a trap."

He nods. Talking to someone else is weird after so long. The words have begun to tumble out of your mouth, uncontrollable, overstating on it. You're sure he understands, what with the humming that follows. It's never truly silent, here, but the quiet worms its way into you.

A stranger's gaze weighs heavily on your shoulders, and you shiver as the air cools, the far-off whining of those frighteningly large mosquitos joining Wilson's soft humming. Must be later than you thought, getting back through the spiders may be hard now that they're making their way out of their nest.

You are right all the time, surely, as Wilson ventures too close to the spiders’ webs, becoming entangled in the gauzy silk. They pop out of their tall nest as you struggle to pull him out, and you toss some stale monster meat in an attempt to draw them away. It almost works, but not quite, and one of them sinks its needle-like fangs into your leg. You shriek, kicking it away, Wilson managing to free himself with its attention off of him, and he scoops you up, surprisingly strong despite his small frame.

You glare up at Wilson accusingly and he shrugs, agitating your leg, your glare morphing into a wince. The last time one of those spiders had gotten you with a bite like that, you'd spent the rest of the week holed up with a fever. You don't have any time for a fever now, though, and despite the hot pain pulsing up your thigh, you're already worrying about the time you'll lose, regardless of the endless stretch in front of you. You had just opened up a cave pretty close to your camp under the assumption that you'd be able to fight off any bats and go exploring, but now...

You're considering just letting yourself die, on the off chance it resets to before the bite, but you're not actually sure what that means for Wilson. He hasn't talked about it, what with your short time together, and the disorientation of opening your eyes a few hours before wasn't something you want to inflict on someone else, or maybe you do, eyes flicking down to your leg. It really hurts, but you're not one to play god.

A distant, dry laugh drifts through the breeze. Wilson doesn't react, though, you must be imagining it.

The familiar sounds of camp fill the air, and you shiver, clearing your mind of it. Opening your mouth to speak before you're cut off by Wilson dropping you unceremoniously into the tent, to which you yelp, pain intensifying and radiating up your leg. Wilson winces at you sympathetically and turns to look out at your chests.

"Have any salve?" He asks, face flushed with exertion, and you roll your eyes, but tell him. He picks out two, and you refrain from commenting. Its wasteful, but his concern is endearing. Despite it being almost entirely deserved. He comes back over, kneeling down as you adjust yourself in your furs. He glances up at you from under his lashes, and you nod, wincing, sucking air in sharply between your teeth, as he spreads the salve over your skin. It’s cool and soothing over the bite, and you sigh.

Wilson's fingers rough and calloused under the silky salve, and all thoughts slip from your grasp. Its nicer when someone else does it, and you honestly wish you'd had someone else around for longer. Well, you wish you had someone around for longer for a myriad of other reasons, but this is definitely up there. You shift, feeling Wilson’s warm breath puff onto your calf, now chilly in the evening air. He wipes his hand on your pant leg, and you're too tired head far too empty, to chastise him for wasting. He ducks out of the tent, and you're uncomfortably disappointed, until the telltale sounds of a fire beginning to crackle.

Has it really been that long? The whole day feels like a soft blur, now. While time usually stretches on, each detail painfully engraved into your memory, today feels blurry. You're not too sure what that means, or if Wilson is somehow causing it, but it's nice to forget. It may be the pain, though, as the comfort of forgetting turns into a thick fog, slowly sweeping over your brain, making your eyelids heavy.

You hum, and the fire to pops, hissing just outside. Just in time too, as the golden hour fades to a chilly blue. Wilson ducks back in, setting the extra salve he brought aside, for tomorrow, according to him. You couldn't possibly care less, though, as the blankets are shifted around you. Is interesting, to be taken care of, and that heavy gaze presses down on your chest. You don't understand, why he still watches, why he brought Wilson to you.

Did he get bored? You could almost laugh, something so significant to you is likely just something he did to spice things up. You don't even remember falling asleep but waking up is about the worst you've felt in a while, aside from dying. That warm, lazy sort of agony is back again, clinging to you like morning dew. Its later than you usually wake up, and you can hear Wilson outside. He is fighting with your bird, apparently, and you stifle a laugh. It doesn't work too well, though, and Wilson abruptly cuts off, making his way over, crouching down to turn you onto your side despite our protests, getting a better look at your leg. He reaches for the salve, beginning to spread it out over the bite, just like yesterday.

"Have any dreams?" He asks, and you don't remember. You can already feel sleep creeping back over you, but he sits you up. anyways, and holds... something out in front of your face. Its the same meatballs you mad for him, except it looks a bit off. He holds a bite up to your mouth, and, despite the odd position, you take a bite. It's sweet? You raise an eyebrow, and he laughs. You'd be mad, if you were any more awake, that he had wasted any honey on this, but then he offers another bite.

But... it’s pretty good, so you take another bite. Almost good enough to make you forget about being mad. But not really. Although it is good enough to make you sleepy, though, sleepier than you already were, and your eyelids, heavy as they are, start to slip shut. Distantly, Wilson adjusts the covers around you, laying you gently into your side. It's nice, to sleep in.

The next time you wake up, your eyes are sticky with sleep, limbs heavy like lead. Wilson appears to be messing around in your camp when you drift back into consciousness, not unwelcome, and he seems to have made up with bird. You snap your head up, peeking out of the tent flap, and he's there, shoulders curled over a basket. He weaves like he's been doing it forever, likely has even, and his tongue pokes out of his mouth, eyebrows tight together in concentration.

You pull your torso out of the tent, laying on the damp grass. And you watch. Once he’s finished, he stands, swaying slightly, and walks off, presumably to set them near the spiders. You sigh heavily, dragging the rest of you out of the tent, standing shakily, leaning on one leg. You limp over to your pile of sticks and pull out the longest one that you can fund, using at as a makeshift cane. You follow after Wilson, not particularly trying to be any sort of sneaky, but managing, nonetheless. Just in case. According to you, in your perspective, he doesn't have a very good track record with the spiders.

You take a moment, as you have so many moments to go, to enjoy the midday sun as you make your way along. The nest comes into view, looming over the spiders, gossamer stretched tightly against an unseen frame. Wilson is far more careful today than he was before, narrowly avoiding the spiders, seemingly having figured out whatever was on his mind. If anything was on his mind. He baits and catches spiders until the trap falls to pieces in his hands. He has a decent number of webs, with a few glands to boot.

He stares at them in his grasp, before, to your mild horror, holding one up to your face and taking a bite of a gland as if it was an apple. You've been there too, of course, but you still have salves back at the base. And still need glands to replace the ones that he used on your leg.

You huff out a laugh, and his head snaps up, like a deer caught in headlights, and you laugh some more, doubling over, pushing the end of your stick into the dirt. Sounds like someone is laughing with you, but when you look back up, Wilson just stands there sheepishly. Odd. He wipes off his mouth with the back of his hand, holding the silk in your direction with the other. You gesture for him to follow, and he does.

His footsteps are light and have an odd rhythm to them. He pauses every once in a while, looking at the surroundings. You clear your throat, orienting yourself.

"The patch of trees over there," you begin, and Wilson breathes in sharply," it's between the spiders and my camp."

He nods, eyes narrowing as he tries to commit it to memory.

"I can always get you a map, you know." You offer, and he leans back, staring at you with an odd expression, tilting his head. "Just in case."

This appears to pacify him for the moment, and he nods. Weird guy. Crouching awkwardly in front of the alchemy engine, you think you probably wouldn't mind not sharing tents. Because of your late start to the day, the sun has already begun its decent, so you get the tent all created as soon as you can. Wilson is, once again, starting the fire. He seems to like doing it, staring wistfully into the flames.

You put his tent across the fire from yours, as much as you'd like to keep him close, and pull one of the soft pseudoblankets out of your tent, promising to get him his own once you have the materials. You take your time putting it up, listening to him throwing something into the crockpot while your back is turned. Once you check over your knots, twice for accuracy, you wave him over.

He checks over your knots too, and seems satisfied as he slips inside, glancing once more at the fire. You limp over to the stick pile, tossing extras in, and he nods, wordlessly. You aren't sure you like the familiarity of this quiet. You miss his chattering, almost. But he must be tired. You're tired too, and the sharp flapping of bat wings cuts into the nature noises you'd gotten used to. Bats, if you recall correctly, have bad eyes, much like the occasional spider, and you don't want to risk it.

Tucking yourself into your tent, you feel lonely. Loneliness had often taken a backseat to your desperate need to survive, but now, with the occasional time for leisure, it creeps back up on you. How ironic it must be, how hilarious for the man on the throne, that you would finally be handed companionship on a silver platter yet still feel so terribly alone. Your leg is still tender.

You can’t sleep. You’re not sure if it’s because of the dull ache in your leg or this newfound isolation, be that as it may, you don't sleep. You, as is common, feel like you’re being laughed at.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i really tried my best with this one, but it still comes off as rushed. not sure how to fix it, but i hope it's still enjoyable.
> 
> recently, I've come into contact with someone i'm trying to avoid, but i suppose its my fault anyways.  
> hurts to have to process loss while they're so close, no?
> 
> i've been thinking of writing something for wickergang, but i think that may be too ambitious considering i struggle with writing 3k words a week.


End file.
